Local and subnational governments would like to put forward a target for a holistic and ecosystem-based approach for enhancing city-region food systems.

Why the city-region approach? We have heard along the day the need to connect urban and rural realities and challenges around the agriculture and food security topic. The city-region approach represents a tool for interconnecting urban-rural linkages as it allows to organise food systems in a whole territory beyond its administrative boundaries.

Why a holistic and ecosystem-based approach? We are also hearing today the multi-facet reality of the topic we are discussing. This is also true for food and agriculture systems in cities. However, we tend to think only about urban - or at most peri-urban – agriculture, underestimating that the potential for action is much wider. Actually cities working on food system are having to address topics ranging from lessening food crises for poverty alleviation or disaster management; to managing a rise in obesity, and promoting a sustainable diet; whilst also working on waste management and adapting to the changing climate to ensure the resilience of the food supply within their community.

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In the post-2015 landscape universal food security and zero hunger can be achieved. To do this we must both better govern the balance between plant-based and animal-based foods and distribute food more equitably between and within countries. In addition, the drive for more efficient food
production must include recognition that animals are more than a simple commodity, and that high welfare standards in farming enhance overall productivity without the negative side effects delivered by low-welfare intensive livestock production systems.

To achieve this, the United Nations and its Member States must:
• include farm animal welfare in agriculture and food security assessments and policies
• recognise that the industrialisation of livestock farming is a major challenge to food security
• reduce the quantity of arable crops fed to livestock, especially cereals, and seek a sustainable balance between animal andcrop production
• promote sustainable diets and address food losses and wastein the supply chain
• protect food security in times of crisis by including animals in emergency response and recovery planning and policies at a national, regional and operational level
• consider how the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), their targets and indicators can support specific and regionally-sensitive measures to ensure that global food production and consumption is sustainable and incorporates respect for animal welfare principles

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Women Major Group Statement,
Follow Up of Rio+20, Regional Implementation Meeting -Asia Pacific,
22-24 April 2013, Bangkok, Thailand

Thank you Chair and member states delegations.
My name is Teresita Vistro representing Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development. I’m speaking today on behalf of the Women's Major Group.
The Asia and Pacific region faces some major challenges to achieving sustainable development. In order to address these challenges, there is an urgent need for clarity on the practices of maldevelopment that must be discontinued in our region, and on transformative development alternatives that will instead positively impact on the lives of people in Asia-Pacific, including women and girls.
We affirm the statements of those governments here, that emphasize the centrality of human rights and gender equality in sustainable development and the Post 2015 development agenda. We also strongly call for more explicit mention of gender equality and women's rights in all national and regional statements, government policies and programmes as we move into these global Open Working Group process, and High Level Political Forum deliberations.
Further, the Women's Major Group demand increased government, UNESCAP and civil society attention to escalating cases of land and ocean grabbing in the region. We further call for strongest attention to the impacts of global warming, climate change, ocean acidification in the region, and globally.
Moreover, we call for an end to government policies that promote rapid and resource intensive practies such as extractive industries, forestry and illegal logging, deep sea mining, and unregulated fishing. These have led to poor men and women in Asia and the Pacific living in the most precarious environments, rendered homeless and also often forcibly evicted from their homes and land. Add to this unsafe household and industrial waste contaminating living environments, waterways and oceanic pollution and it is exceedingly clear that the region must indeed move quickly toward a new kind of sustainable development, and new state responses to poverty eradication.
The Women's Major Group reiterates that Asia and Pacific development has been built on the backs of women, and it is time to end this. Women in our region produce the world´s products at increasingly lower prices; working for below subsistence wages in unbearable conditions. Women workers are denied rights to organise and bargain. Women working as domestic workers, Asia and the Pacific´s most common occupation for women are working 18 hour days, without a day off, nor guaranteed wage. They are separated from family and routinely abused at home and abroad where they also now take on roles in an unregulated and often exploitative global care chain In homes, countries, and the region, women's rights and autonomy over our bodies and life decisions are violated, especially due to the escalating fundamentalism and the politicization of religion. Moreover, Women face sexual and gender based violence, and are forced to work in a globally dysfunctional economic system that further exploits in the name of development. The current development model has clearly failed rural, indigenous, migrant women.
These are the realities of too many women in Asia and the Pacific, and has to be addressed urgently. This is the time for us to be brave and aim for a transformative and redistributive framework that reduce inequalities of wealth, power and resources, and that exacerbates gender, ethnic, class, and many other forms of inequalities.
Concretely, the Women's Major Group recommend the following:
• We call for deep and structural changes in existing global systems of power, resources and decision making. We need new frameworks and institutions designed to be democratic, accountable to all people and particularly those most affected, based on internationally agreed human rights standards and obligations;
• The Post-2015 development agenda framework must be based on existing human rights legal norms, standards and political commitments. International human rights law, including the UDHR, CEDAW, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, ECSR, and ICCPR and their follow-up programmes must form a non-negotiable base;
• There must be clear and time-bound commitments, with targets and indicators measuring quality as well as quantity and aiming to address inter and intra-state inequalities.
• On Means of Implementation, we call for timely collection and disaggregation of data on the basis of all the grounds of discrimination and their intersectionality as essential to identify, visibilise and respond to inequalities and violations of human rights and to increase accountability. Mechanisms for data collection and analysis for monitoring progress must be transparent and inclusive of input from women’s groups; require transparency of information, including budgets, as well as of decision-making processes and mechanisms at all levels and across thematic themes, as a principle to underpin the Post-2015 development framework. We demand it not only from governments, but all other development actors;
• We call on UNESCAP, UNEP and whole UN system to reflect diverse needs of all women in their programs and practices. The UN system is accountable in fully protecting and promoting gender equality and women's rights including urging governments to implement their human rights obligations;We demand the new development framework includes dedicated gender equality goals, as well as specific targets and indicators throughout. It should be an explicit priority of governments and all major groups;
• Finally Member states, We call for your full guarantee of women’s control over resources and sustainable livelihood, the full implementation of decent work and living wage, full, equal and meaningful participation of women in all decision bodies in all levels, elimination of all forms of violence against women, and an environment of peace and security for women to fully realise their rights. Lastly, we urge government to guarantee sexual and reproductive rights and access to quality and comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services to women and girls. When women from Asia and the Pacific do not have the ability to make decisions on all aspects of their sexuality and decide the number and spacing of their children, then they cannot participate wholly in any aspects of our lives.

Mr. Chair, Honorable Delegations, Major Groups; we are now have the opportunity to chart a new sustainable development course; one that the vast majority of this world wants. It is indeed one that is based on global equity, sustainability of justice, realisation of univeral human rights , gender equality and dignity for all - including all women and girls in Asia and the PacificThank you.

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Post2015 and Sustainable Development Goals - by Wardarina, APWLD on behalf of Women MG

Thank you Chair, my name is Wardarina from Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development. We are a regional women network with 180 members in 25 countries in Asia-Pacific who work with rural, indigenous, migrant women. I’m speaking on behalf of women major group.

Policy making and global architecture over the past 3 decades has led to wealth, power and resources accruing to tiny minority of the world richest and most powerful people and corporations. We heard many states now talking about prioritizing inequalities. However, we need to be clear what that means. SDGs and Post 2015 should prioritise in addressing the inequalities of wealth, resources, power and voice between countries, between rich and poor, and between men and women. This mean we need a NEW redistributive model that address the root structural causes of inequalities, we must have NEW accountabilities framework for states committing to specific actions, not just symptomatic targets, and we need a NEW development framework and goals, not just MDGs plus a few new indicators.

We recommended 4 Key Priorities of SDGs and Post 2015 Development Framework:

First, control over resources and sustainable livelihoods – SDGs and Post 2015 Development Framework must ensure men and women have access to and control over productive resources, land, food and nutritions, finance, appropriate and affordable technologies, sustainable energies, information, education and health care. We Need a global structure that allows big percentage of arable land controlled and accessed by small land owner and farmers, and the laws and policies that guarantee equal rights for women to land and resources

Second, Decent Work and Living Wage – A development framework that aims to to ensure workers, families and communities can live in dignity must be incorporate a target that realistically values labour and sets target to improve living and working conditions. The new development framework need to acknowledge and value reproductive work, transformed macro economic policies would not aim to increase women´s ´productivity‘ without recognising the enormous productive contributions women already make. Recognising the value of reproductive work would also result in the recognition of domestic work as work.

Peace and Security based on Justice – Government has to meet their obligation to exercise due diligence to eliminate all forms of violence against women and provide reparations for women survivors. We should have a fully funded, national plans of action to eliminate VAW in all forms, measure of women’s access to justice including service and reparations for women survivors and their families, comparison of military budget to expenditure on health and other social services.

Democratic Participation and Voice of the Most Marginalised - Good governance starts at home with women able to make decisions over their own bodies, sexuality and lives. For that, we must at a minimum guarantee that women can fully exercise their sexual, health and reproductive rights, Laws and policies that discriminate on the basis of gender, sexual orientation and gender identity must be repealed. the vital role of women’s movements must be recognized. Resources must be directed to feminist movement and leadership building and advocacy to ensure equality, human rights, democratic governance, and transformative change and development for all. Thank You!

Women’s Major Group - Sustainable Development

The Rio+20 outcome document proposes the elaboration of a set of Sustainable Development Goals that will contribute to sustainably managing the world’s increasing resource use within the context of dwindling resource availability and prioritizes the eradication of poverty and hunger as a matter of urgency. The World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) believes that the introduction of animal welfare as an integral part of sustainable development is important, as global adherence to animal welfare principles will have significant positive impacts for poverty eradication and economic development, food security, public health, climate change and the preservation of biodiversity.

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A foremost priority of the Open Working Group for SDGs must be to develop a set of recommendations that can be merged with the outcomes of the post-2015 process so as to end up with a single future development agenda. Divergent agendas will undermine the needed and desired universal approach to development.

The inclusion of health as a central tenet of proposed sustainable development goals and within the post-2015 framework- including health indicators across all dimensions of development- will fortify and sustain development progress. This will be especially true given a future development framework that includes an expanded, more holistic view of global health priorities, with a particular focus on the global burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

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Sustainable livestock production, of which animal welfare is an integral part, is an example of a comprehensive approach to development and an effective way of achieving the desired objectives of food security, social stability and environmental sustainability as well as promoting job creation and equitable economic growth. Over one billion of the poorest people on the planet depend on their animals as their main source of livelihood and food security. In other words, their animals are their main productive asset and this should be considered by the Open Working Group on the elaboration of the SDGs.